HomeMy WebLinkAbout09-15-20 Public Comment - L. Barnard - Re_ Old Idaho Pole siteFrom:Larry Barnard
To:Agenda
Subject:Re: Old Idaho Pole site
Date:Tuesday, September 15, 2020 6:14:37 AM
Honorable Commissioners
I would like to weigh in on the decisions that might be made soon regarding the old Idaho Polesite in Northeast Bozeman. First, I want to express my opposition to creating another or any
Urban Renewal District in the City of Bozeman. -Bozeman hardly needs incentives for people to develop real estate and if there are incentives
they should be directed to affordable housing and other critical needs.-URD's take money away from the tax rolls, including schools, and that shortage then has to
be made up by everyone else paying taxes in the city.-Those property tax paying citizens making up the shortage almost exclusively do not benefit
from the development in URDs.-The Idaho Pole site is a terrible candidate, aesthetically speaking, for development because of
its location between a railroad and an interstate and over a superfund site.-One aesthetic challenge is the train signal sound. "Quiet crossing" development is costly and
complicated and should not be borne by the City of Bozeman's unless all crossings audiblefrom the City of Bozeman are included.
-Development on these acres has huge challenges around access and it is certainly not clearthat the development in the URD will finance those needs without the city taxpayers bearing
the load outside of the tax benefits of the URD. -The railroad crossing in that area is already a hazard, as are all crossings, and a major
inconvenience. If the URD sponsored a bypass over or under the railroad it would shunt toomuch traffic onto L street and beyond and force another probable general taxpayer fix for the
problem.-The rubric that density development is needed because it solves urban sprawl problems is not
a reality in Bozeman and Gallatin County. We are achieving density for whom? Not for thecurrent residents here, rather for a whole other demographic which is displacing the current
residents. Please, sit on this one for a while until the developers have a plan that doesn't require taxpayer
sponsored development.Larry Barnard